Last June, concertizing in California, I payed a visit once again to Muir Woods. As a girl, I was taken hiking and camping in the redwoods of Southern California; later, as a teen-ager and young adult several times I spent time near the coastal redwoods of Northern California; and when I lived in San Francisco, in my mid-twenties, hiking in the the trails surrounding Muir Woods (and walking in the woods themselves) was a not-so-secret pleasure. There is something about these giant creatures that soothes me; it's not just their smell or color, or the softness of the ground underfoot but something far more fundamental: these trees are alive in a way I wish to be, patiently growing—surviving immense obstacles—over hundreds of years, from sprouts no taller than the span of the palm of my hand to heights of over 350 feet. Their height are hard to fathom, looking straight up, but earlier that month, about two weeks previously, one tree at the northern end of Cathedral Grove, had snapped at the base, spanning the narrow valley over the creek. In looking at the tree lying horizontally I had a whole new perspective of what "span" really means. I put my hands on the trunk, and it was vibrating still, brimming with life force.
